Jeff Wall
Singer-Songwriter-Storyteller
BIGDUMBHICK
photo by Kim Lane
Jeff Wall, known to many as The Bigdumbhick, is an acoustic singer-songwriter-storyteller living in North Carolina. At 6’7” and somewhere around 300+ lbs., he’s certainly big. Usually seen in bib overalls, if he’s wearing anything at all, you might be excused for thinking he’s something of a hick, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that he’s dumb. That’s just a disguise. There’s a whole lot more going on here than first appearances might indicate.
A native of Middle Tennessee, Wall joined the Navy at age 18, to see the world and, as he says, find someone to date that he wasn’t kin to. He spent the next 20 years in uniform, traveling the globe, breaking bread, conversating, and playing music with people from just about every imaginable point on the political, religious, and social spectrum. He’s not nearly the hick he might portray himself to be.
After attending his first bluegrass festival, and taking in numerous campfire jam sessions, Wall quickly realized that it was much more fun to play music than it was to watch it. Upon retiring from the Navy, he settled in North Carolina, playing cover tunes in local bars. In 2015, he accidentally entered a monthly original music competition and wrote his first song. He made it to the final two of that competition, so the next month he wrote another song – and once again, he made it to number two. Finding himself in number two is an apt description of Wall’s musical career, but it wasn’t long before he had enough original material to record his first CD, 2016’s Love Everybody, and the world had yet another folksinger.
Drawing influences from bluegrass, country, blues, folk, and even reggae, his original material ranges from comedic complaints about the injustices of aging - “Erectile Dysfunction Blues,” “Battery Operated Boyfriend,” and “Will I Ever Get Laid Again”, to raw and deeply moving like “Help Me Mama, I Can’t Breathe,” “Choices,” and “New Wayfaring Strangers.” Wall is a uniquely gifted natural performer, delivering his songs with an authenticity that is all too rare these days. His lyrics will almost always make you chuckle, think, or even feel, while his voice will only occasionally make you wince. His sardonic, self-deprecating sense of humor serves as a perfect candy coating to help make that bitter pill of human existence just a little easier for us all to swallow.
His latest release, Bigdumbhick - Hard to Love Sober, is his fifth CD of all-original material, (not counting the book and compilation project Songs and Stories.) All of Wall’s musical influences can be found on this latest project -- from the rocking “Storm a-Coming” to the bluesy “Hard to Love Sober”; from the gospel soul of “Love Everybody” and the bluegrass-flavored “Move Back to the Country” to the hardcore honky-tonk of “Bodies in the Basement”; from the heartbreaking “I Am Not Here” to the tongue-in-cheek “It Ain’t Really Church (If You Ain’t Got a Snake”) -- with all of it anchored down by Wall’s piston-like bluegrass rhythm guitar playing.
Joined by such luminaries as phenom Bluegrass fiddler Michael Cleveland; multi-instrumentalist Buddy Woodward (Dixie Bee-Liners, Kingston Trio); multi-instrumentalist Tom Hampton (Poco), Vocalist extraordinaire John Cowan (New Grass Revival; The Sky Kings, The Doobie Brothers); Guitar Wizards Phil Fuson (Itchy Bruddah and the Hater Tots), Joey Matteo (Big Daddy Love), celebrated old-time clawhammer banjo stylist Riley Baugus (Polecat Creek, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson) and his long suffering wife 0f 33 years, Alesia, who sang backup vocals and made sure that this album didn’t suck (with the exception of Wall’s mandolin playing... she couldn’t fix EVERYTHING)
““With the inhibitions and filters of a toddler, Jeff is a fantastic songwriter and charismatic performer. Highly entertaining songs and stories flow from him in an endless stream, and if he doesn’t make you think, and laugh out loud, you should put your phone down and pay attention.” ”
As anyone that’s found themselves within a hundred yards of him for any length of time can tell you, Jeff Wall can be a pain in the ass.
He's loud, opinionated, stubborn, and as elegant as a fart. He's liable to embarrass everyone in earshot while remaining totally oblivious of the fact. He's not Pavarotti, his guitar is probably out of tune, he tells way too many dick jokes, and he doesn't care if he screws up on stage, he's just going to laugh and start the tune all over again...multiple times if he has to. His shows have always been equal parts stand-up comedy, 12-step recovery meetings, roasts, and therapy sessions, with a little guitar-picking thrown in for good measure.
He’s one of the funniest raconteurs you’re ever likely to meet. He’s much more likely to try to make you laugh, or make himself laugh, than to ever try to save the world with one of his songs. What is also the God’s-honest truth is that he’s a deeply authentic human with an inconveniently large heart, and when he does sing of pain and suffering, there’s no fat on the bone. Everything is earned, and everything is lean.
We’ve been kicking around the idea of making a record for a long time now, and I was always hesitant, because I thought it might be a difficult process to make sure that we could successfully get across Jeff’s warmth and humor and the full breadth of what makes him so thoroughly entertaining and raw and warm and gutbucket and authentic. Not to mention how to negotiate Jeff’s old-time traditional roots with his more renegade cow-punk leanings. However, we figured it out and we got it done. Working on this record (BIGDUMBHICK - HARD TO LOVE SOBER) has been nothing but pure joy, and I’m proud of every verse and chorus, and I sure hope Jeff is proud of it too.
Doug Davis
Producer/Engineer/Musician/Songwriter
Flytrap Music Production
Winston-Salem, NC